Anyone tired of answering emails and calls from their boss after work may soon be protected by law in California.
A bill has been introduced in California legislature that would give employees the “right to disconnect” from their jobs during nonworking hours.
Assemblymember Matt Haney of San Francisco first introduced the bill, Assembly Bill 2751 in February, which would allow employees to disconnect from communications from their employer during nonworking hours.
If passed, California would be the first state to create a “right to disconnect” for employees. Similar laws have already been enacted in 13 countries, including Australia, Argentina, Belgium, France, Italy, Mexico, Portugal and Spain.
This isn’t already a right?
In my state being called into work requires a 3 hour minimum payment.
So a manager texting me to go respond to an email would be a 3 hour charge.
Our work culture was set to leave people alone off the clock due to this.
Now that I’m a salary employee I can see this being an issue. When I login in the morning I can see chatter at 11pm on work stuff.
Thankfully I’m not expected to answer to anything until my normal hours.
There needs to be legislation to reign in salary type work as well.
It still needs to be based on hours, like an average of 40 hours per week sort of thing.
Yes your pay cheque will be the same every week for simplicity, but you shouldn’t be expected to work 60 hours just because you’re salary. If you work one week 50 hours, you should be able to tell your boss you are only working 30 hours the next week.
I have worked extra hours on salary, because on salary I’m being paid for the work, not the time. If I didn’t complete the work, I need to keep working. But that’s the fault of my own time management or inability to foresee the complexity of the task or estimate it’s workload properly.
Hourly gigs for me are always time constrained. You tell me my weekly shift before I sign and I tell you under what circumstances I’ll work OT (including rate, advanced notice, etc.) otherwise we have no deal.
I understand that not everyone is presented with the same choice or available opportunities, and my heart goes out to them.
The flaw with salary is that there is no defined amount of “work”.
It wont always be because you underestimated the complexity and mismanaged your time. If they asked you to complete a task and the only way to do it was to work 80 hours a week, sure that’s sometimes necessary. But what if they do that every week? Unless you were aware of those requirements during the hiring process and salary negotiation there’s nothing you can do. What if they pile on even more to your 80 hour week and you need to work the occasional 100 hour week?
There’s no way to regulate salary abuse, that’s why the system needs to be based on an average of hours.
Yeah “evening out hours” is usually referred to flex.
I had a job I literally did 90 hrs then 100 hours and the company gave me ONE day off the week after.
I was drowning and we succeeded. I got minimal recognition, a minor bonus (no where near enough to cover my OT) and only a day off. Spoke with the CEO as part of my kudos and he said we would get me my hours back.
My boss had other plans. Needed the coverage.
I started applying around after that.
I clarify with every job how many hours per week they’re paying me to do. I’ve never worked a minute past my agreed time without a contract stating how many extra hours were required, how much extra wages that would require, and under what circumstances such a clause can be triggered.
I didn’t realize others had so little control. It’s really heartbreaking.
Super toxic workplaces…
Last job I had was salary and it was 40 hrs a week minimum with “additional hours as needed by business needs”
This usually meant after hours server administration but if there was an outage then it was all you can eat unpaid overtime.
The worst part is mandatory 9am to 5pm coverage so no “evening out hours”
Pfft, I’ve had friends who worked fast food jobs where they regularly got called in during their off hours/days. From what they told me, they had to commit to not just answering the phone, but showing up anytime their employer asked them to, no scheduling or prior notice required. This was apparently something they could get fired over refusing. It’s bonkers.
This is in the US, but not California.
Yup, my old grocery store required this as a part of being full-time. You couldn’t refuse a shift, couldn’t swap hours, and had to be able to come in when asked unless the absence was preplanned or a medical emergency.
Needless to say, almost all of the full-time people had no lives outside work, at all.
That really feels like it should already have been illegal.